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July 26, 2006

Maximum Whine-age.

Old Balls is at it again. In a thread over at the John Byrne Forums that began innocently enough (you really think Brian Bendis is listening to music while writing, thus providing a "soundtrack" for all those silent scenes he writes? WHO CARES??!?), but then just became an excuse for Old Balls to whine some more about them damn kids who constantly blow their deadlines and are ruining the industry. Of course, this isn't the first time he's moaned about those pesky kids and it probably won't be the last. But it's still fun. Says OB (his is the bottom quote plus the image, which responds to the top two quotes):

I even miss JB's art behind the old Marvel format of covers with the character box at the top left and the freaking month on the cover. Why take away the month even? +++

Probably to keep people from realizing that the book is 3 month's late.

***

Something very much like that, no doubt. Also probably because the publishers don't know with any certainty when a book will come out, even up to the time the covers start rolling off the presses.

Not to be outdone, Howard Mackie joins the party to comment on whether strict adherence to the "Marvel Method" of comic writing (plot, pencils, then script) would speed up the process and save many a blown deadline:

the Marvel method, for untrained writers and editors, comes with it's on problems. Instead of writers who would rather be writing screenplays you are likely to get writers who want to write novels. A good Marvel method plot is not, and should not be, a novel. Also, as John has said, it gives the artist much more room to ignore and/or drop things out in their entirety. I have worked with some of the best artists in the business who have totally changed things I called for in a plot because"it was going to take too long to draw."

I still think that a plot-art-script-ink scenario works best, but if I knew so much perhaps I could get work!!

Mackie, of course, is the former Marvel editor and writer whose name became so damned radioactive he had to be credited as "Writer X" in his latter days at the company.

Perhaps it's not Mackie's opinion on the proper way to create a comic that stands in the way of him getting work today. Perchance, it's this:

Posted by YMB Staff at July 26, 2006 10:30 AM